Constructing Connections: Place and Identity in Early Modern Visual Culture, panel at the Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting 2016, Boston, March 31–April 2, 2016

Location, location, location. Late medieval and early modern artists and patrons constructed and communicated civic, religious, and personal connections with specific places through various image modes. This session seeks papers that explore these profound and complex associations between identity and place as they developed in global visual culture between 1300 and 1700. Possible topics include (but are in no way limited to): topographical iconography, the establishment of saints’ cults and pilgrimage destinations, the development of civic and regional styles, imagined locations and/or travel, and the trans-national movement of artists and/or objects. Papers that address the imaging of place and identity in materials beyond that of painting and sculpture are particularly welcome.

Please send a paper title, an abstract (150 words maximum) and a CV (300 words maximum) to Ashley Elston (Berea College) and Madeline Rislow (Kansas City Art Institute) at constructingconnectionsrsa2016@gmail.com by May 31, 2015.